Microsoft fines 'too low': Free Software Foundation

The Free Software Foundation Europe claims that the fines that the European Commission is proposing to levy against Microsoft are too low to break its monopoly.

Last week, the European Commission said it may fine Microsoft up to 2 million euros (?Ǭ£1.3m) a day for failing to comply with antitrust sanctions. Microsoft has five weeks to reply to the Commission’s statement of objections and has already said it will contest this decision.

Joachim Jakobs of the Free Software Foundation Europe on Wednesday in the United Kingdom said the fines are “long overdue”, but are too low to impact Microsoft’s behaviour.

“It is basically a good thing but the fine should be 10 or 100 times as much,” said Jakobs. “Two million euros doesn’t really force them to do anything.”

Microsoft is likely to find it cheaper to pay the fine, than to disclose information that will allow non-Microsoft servers to interoperate with Windows servers, according to Georg Greve, the president of FSFE.

Full story: ZDNet Australia